It is well known, to monitor the sense node of highly capacitive, low-drive current state indicating device such as for example a semiconductor memory by connecting the sense node to a sensing scheme including an inverter element followed by several amplifier stages.
In order to change the state of the sensing inverter, the sense node must be slewed beyond its trip point. The slew rate for moving the node past the trip point cannot increase merely by designing the state indicating or memory device to deliver more current to the sense node for slewing. An attempt to supply an increased level of current to the node would only increase the capacitance seen by the node, in effect maintaining the slew rate at about the same level as a result of the increased capacitance in the memory device resulting from its ability to supply the additional current.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to clamp the voltage swing of the output node of the state indicating device or memory between selected limits straddling the expected trip point of the sensing device connected to the node.